Floorstanding loudspeakers — YG Acoustics SONJA 3.2

The Sonja 3.2 is a YG Acoustics three-way passive tower and one of six models in its Reference range, next to the Carmel 3, Vesper 3, Vantage 3, Hailey 3 and Sonja 3.3. It combines the Lattice tweeter, two midrange drivers and one bass driver with the Ultracoherent crossover. Like the rest of the Reference series it is made from high-grade aerospace aluminium machined in-house and hand-built in the YG workshops in Colorado and Cambridge.

Key specs that matter

Usable output extends from 20 Hz to 40 kHz and sensitivity is quoted at 88 dB. The impedance averages 4 ohm and falls to 2.8 ohm at its minimum. The drive units are a 26 mm YG Lattice hybrid tweeter, dual 15 cm aluminium-cone midrange drivers with neodymium motor magnets and a 26 cm aluminium-cone bass driver whose motor is specified with ultra-high field strength. The crossover divides the signal at 90 Hz and 1.85 kHz. Height is 129 cm, width 33 cm and depth 63 cm, and each speaker weighs 145 kg, with silver and black as standard finishes and other options available on request.

Engineering and use context

The enclosure is a three-layer aerospace aluminium cabinet with constrained layer damping. For the Lattice tweeter YG uses a novel airframe made from a specially selected aerospace alloy, machined in its own facilities, and it states the unit keeps distortion very low over a wide bandwidth while giving wide angular dispersion. The Ultracoherent crossover is in its third generation. The maker quotes relative phase within plus or minus 5 degrees wherever the outputs of the drivers are within 20 dB, and the network is optimised for phase alignment, phase slope and transient response. Component choices include custom capacitors with pure metal foil models, multiple foil resistors and resonance-damped inductors, arranged in computationally optimised layouts. The Reference 3 generation was developed with novel theoretical models, multi-domain simulations and many hours of listening, and the company also claims very low distortion throughout the range together with close pair matching.

Pairing

With such a low minimum load, a high-current amplifier that stays stable with low-impedance loads is the fitting partner. The heavy cabinets also require a floor able to carry their mass.

Alternatives

YG Acoustics offers the Hailey 3 as a more compact Reference floorstander, weighing 91 kg per speaker with 87 dB sensitivity.